Life-cycle assessment of an industrial direct air capture process based on temperature-vacuum swing adsorption

Current climate targets require negative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Direct air capture is a promising negative emission technology, but energy and material demands lead to trade-offs with indirect emissions and other environmental impacts. Here, we show by life-cycle assessment that the commercial direct air capture plants in Hinwil and Hellisheioi operated by Climeworks can already achieve negative emissions today, with carbon capture efficiencies of 85.4% and 93.1%. The climate benefits of direct air capture, however, depend strongly on the energy source. When using low-carbon energy, as in Hellisheioi, adsorbent choice and plant construction become more important, inducing up to 45 and 15 gCO(2)e per kilogram CO2 captured, respectively. Large-scale deployment of direct air capture for 1% of the global annual CO2 emissions would not be limited by material and energy availability. However, the current small-scale production of amines for the adsorbent would need to be scaled up by more than an order of magnitude. Other environmental impacts would increase by less than 0.057% when using wind power and by up to 0.30% for the global electricity mix forecasted for 2050. Energy source and efficiency are essential for direct air capture to enable both negative emissions and low-carbon fuels. Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2 has garnered interest as a negative emissions technology to help achieve climate targets, but indirect emissions and other environmental impacts must be better understood. Here, Deutz and Bardow perform a life-cycle assessment of DAC plants operated by Climeworks, based on industrial data.

Automated summary

Direct air capture technology can achieve negative emissions, but its benefits depend on the energy source. Large-scale deployment of direct air capture is not limited by material and energy availability, but the production of amines for adsorbents needs to be scaled up. Energy source and efficiency are crucial for achieving negative emissions and low-carbon fuels with direct air capture.